Volume 270 | No. 1

Mon, Sept 22

2023—Canada’s Parliament gives a standing ovation to “Ukrainian hero” Yaroslav Hunka—an SS vet of WW II. 2003—“A year from now,” Richard Perle says, “I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush.” 1987—Navy Reserve Capt. Timothy J. Dorsey shoots down a Navy plane during a training exercise. Its crew survives with injuries. Dorsey’s career is unscathed: daddy’s an Admiral. 1975—’Nam vet Oliver Sipple deflects Sarah Jane Moore’s shot, saving Jerry Ford. Harvey Milk outs him; newspapers report he’s gay. He dies at 47, drunk, disowned, and alone. 1970—President Nixon demands more FBI spies for college …

Read more

Sun, Sept 21

2014—A spokesman for the Islamic State  calls U.S. Sec. of State John Kerry an “uncircumcised old geezer.” 2001—CIA chief George Tenet tells the V.P. his claim that Iraq and al-Qaeda are linked is crap, but Dick “Dick” Cheney goes on repeating it. 1989—The Chase Manhattan Bank accepts for deposit a check sent as a prank by Spy Magazine. Endorsed by “short-fingered vulgarian” Donald J. Trump, it’s for $0.13. 1983—President Reagan’s Interior Secretary James G. Watt boasts about his staff’s diversity: “I have a Black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple.” 1982—Edward Lee Howard, a CIA officer suspected of spying for the U.S.S.R., eludes FBI …

Read more

More Pertinent Questions for The Charlatan

Dear Editor; This past week saw the Secretary of Health and Human Services, aka “The Charlatan,” grilled, roasted and fried to a crisp in front of a bipartisan panel of Congress critters. Between gasping for breath and lying through his teeth, we didn’t learn much we didn’t already know. I would like to have heard the senators ask the following questions. Q: Mr. Secretary, you repeatedly and constantly trash the data produced by the CDC, whether it’s Covid-related or pertains to other health issues. When asked to produce an answer involving data, you first say you need to look at the data, then you say …

Read more

Turning Seventy-five

It isn’t that I feargrowing older—such things as fear,reluctance or desireplay no part at allexcept as light and shadow sweep a hillsideon a Sunday afternoon,astonishing the eye but passing onat sunset with the landstill unchanged: the same rocks,the same trees, tall grass gently drifting—merely that I do not understandhow my age has come to meor what it means. It’s almost like some smallforest creature one might findoutside the door some frosty autumn morning,tired, lame, uncomprehending,almost calm.You want to stroke its fur,pick it up, mend the leg and send itscampering away—but somethingin its eyes says, “No,this is how I live, and how I die.”And so, a …

Read more

Tramps! Mugwumps! Women murdered in Whitechapel, London!

News and Notes Jeremiah O’Neil, one of a gang of four white loafers who undertook to give two colored men an unprovoked thrashing in Providence, R.I., Sept. 15th, was fatally shot by one of the colored men. There was a free fight in the Westminster Presbyterian church at St. Paul, Minn., Sept. 16th, over the alleged immorality of the late pastor. The police quelled the riot. Charles Kinsel of Philadelphia is experimenting with an air-sailing ship. The mugwump bosses of New York have ordered their followers to vote against Hill for governor. A full-blooded negro testified in a rich Irish brogue before a Brooklyn court …

Read more

Welcome to the Spectacle

Thirteen days ago we actually thought that we already had the subject for our next Rant. Will we never learn? On the morning of September 6th, McDonald’s most famous customer, formerly known as The Donald, posted an AI-generated image of himself, dressed up as Lt. Col. “Bill” Kilgore, squatting most improbably for a man of his true girth. Behind him: red and yellow fire, Huey helicopters, and the skyline of Chicago. A hand-lettered legend read, “Chipocalypse Now.” The President of the United States threw in a little bonus for the literate among his followers: a text reading, “‘I love the smell of deportations in the …

Read more